Atiku parleys with Civil Society actors

The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2019 general elections, Atiku Abubakar, held a parley with Civil Society Orgnaisations in Abuja on Thursday to x-ray the critical issues of governance troubling Nigeria.

Atiku noted that the role of civil society organizations is remarkable in a democracy, saying that democracy will not survive without the civil society organizations.

He said that someone did say what are the political parties or the PDP doing; articulating that PDP has very few membership but the support for any political party is derived from the people and the people are the ones that constitute the civil society organization. “So, there must be a partnership between the civil society organizations and the political parties to enthrone, sustain, maintain and develop democracy.

‘Therefore, I will like to appeal for the strengthening of this partnership between the civil society organizations and the political party – in this case, the PDP – because it was the PDP that enthroned democracy in 1999, not the APC.

‘And as humans and political parties, we make mistakes, you vote us out and vote us back, but the PDP is the party that enthroned democracy in this country since 1999 and ensured that it is still here with us,” Atiku declared.

Answering a professor’s questions: “How do we restore the dignity of Nigerians either abroad or at home;” the PDP candidate said that the dignity of Nigerians start from home, not abroad. “It is when we dignify Nigerians at home that they are dignified abroad.

“But how do we dignify Nigerians? We must provide good governance, we must provide security, we must provide prosperity, we must provide jobs to them. Anything that makes a human being not undignified, we must respect law and order, and we must obey court orders.

“These are things that dignify human beings, so if you dignify Nigerians at home, they will be dignified abroad,” he declared.

Atiku narrated that there was a time he went to the United States for a course as a customs officer; when he got there, they told him every Nigerian passport holder is a suspect.

“So, the question is what makes a Nigerian passport holder a suspect? Many things. And these start from home. Therefore, we must dignify Nigerians at home, so that Nigerians can be dignified abroad. And I can assure you, a PDP government will dignify Nigerians so that they can be dignified abroad,” the Waziri Adamawa said.

On stopping kidnapping, Atiku said that it is simply provide jobs and get the boys off recruitment for crime, saying that most of those kidnapping are jobless!

On how to encourage Nigerians abroad to return home, Atiku observed that Nigerians are some of the best brains abroad. He cited an example with the American University of Nigeria he set up in Yola. “Before I opened the university doors, for about five years, I made sure I provided all the infrastructure the university would require: water, electricity, sewage, internet, name it, and then, we advertised for Nigerians who were, particularly, teaching in the United States since it is an American system university.

“And we had so many of them coming back because whatever they were looking for in America, is provided in Yola!

“If you are used to teaching in America via the internet, we provided the internet that is why you might be shocked to know that today, 52 percent of internet traffic in Nigeria is in Yola! Because the students, lecturers are on e-books, workers and everybody on e-technology,” Atiku narrated.

He maintained: “So if we want our citizens who have excelled abroad to return home, let us provide what they get there, and this is doable because we have the human and material resources to do it. This is how I believe our experts abroad can return home.”

On the expulsion of UNICEF from certain parts of Nigeria, the PDP presidential candidate said that they are doing that because they want to isolate the country in the comity of nations. “We are grappling with multi-faceted problems as far as the issue of children and education is concerned and these are some of the issues that the UNICEF deals with and we have a lot of these challenges. So, why on earth do we expel UNICEF from some parts of the country,” he said.

“Therefore, the civil society groups and the political parties have to partner in protecting the rule of law, freedom and democracy in this country,” he advocated. Atiku warned: “if we joke with this country, we will end up with a dictatorship in this country. But I can assure you I have all my life fought for democracy and against dictatorship and I will continue to fight it!”